Forgotten But Not Forgiven
by hana-akira
Summary: Because Uchiha Shisui hadn't really wanted to die. Not really.


Fandom: Naruto  
Title: Forgotten But Not Forgiven  
Author: hana-akira AKA rurichi  
Character: Uchiha Shisui, Uchiha Itachi  
Genre: Angst, General  
Rating: 17+  
Warning: OOC, doesn't-really-follow-Canon  
Prompt: You killed me/You buried me/You're going to forget me.  
Summary: Because Uchiha Shisui hadn't really wanted to die. Not really.

—

_You killed me.__  
You buried me.  
(You're going to forget me.)_

—

1: I don't want to die.

—

Uchiha Shisui doesn't want to die. This may not seem like an important fact, but it is. It's what separates him from the rest of his family and his relatives, after all. The one defining characteristic quirk that makes him stand out if he was in a crowd of Uchiha, like a sparrow in a flock of crows. Even though he has the distinctive Uchiha looks—black hair and black eyes on white skin—anyone who took a glimpse of him could tell right away that he was different. Whether it was from the too-open expressions he had on his face or the fact that he fought differently from everyone else is another story entirely.

The point is, though, is that he doesn't want to die. Which leads him to not wanting to be a ninja because the career of being a ninja dealt with death.

All of the Uchiha are ninja.

Uchiha Shisui doesn't want to be a ninja, but he's going to be one, anyway, because all the Uchiha were, once upon a time.

Uchiha Shisui is going to be a ninja and he's going to die.

(He never tells this little bit of information to Itachi because Itachi would never understand. Itachi may have seen the end of a war—most, if not all, just blood and gore—but Itachi will never understand why he preferred to stand aside instead of in the fray.)

—

2: If no one remembers you properly, it's like you never existed at all.

—

There are many reasons why he doesn't want to die—it would be painful, someone would cry—but the most prevailing reason why is that he doesn't want to be forgotten.

Uchiha Shisui knows that people who go away are quickly forgotten and he knows this fact well (He knows this because he doesn't remember the faces or the voices of his parents anymore, not since both died on a mission when he was four; the death number, the unlucky number(1). He had been hoisted off to another relative, a second cousin or two, and so had nothing left at all to remember them. He could ask the people who knew them, but he knows it will never be enough because it wasn't the real them.)

He knows that if he dies, he'll be forgotten, because death was the easiest way to forget someone (Because that person wouldn't be there anymore. Wouldn't be there to remind, to remember. They would just be in your memories and everyone knows that memories become faulty over time, worn away like mountains by waves—so slowly that no one would notice until everything was too late to save the crumbling precipice.)

Uchiha Shisui doesn't want to die and doesn't understand at all why others do (They say it's an honor to die for a friend—that it's noble to die for the Village, for others. Shisui doesn't agree with this because in the end he knows no one will remember the dead except for the fact that now they're dead.)

Upon hearing this, all Itachi does is look blankly at him, incomprehension drawn all over his face.

Shisui never tries to elaborate to his best friend that he doesn't want to be forgotten by _him_ because he knows that Itachi would never understand because Itachi never understood him.

—

3: In with the new, out with the old.

—

They say he's too young to understand, too childish, but Shisui knows better than they do. Knows better than the adults above him and the children beside him. He knows better and he will not be fooled.

(It's a known fact that once you were dead, someone better would replace you. Just look at the widows with their new lovers. A living example right there.)

They don't understand. And Itachi? He's the one who understands the least of all.

(Shisui knows personally that once he dies, once he's _gone_, Itachi will forget him and will replace him. He knows this and it hurts more than it should.)

No one understands and he thinks silently to himself that no one ever will.

—

4: And they have thrown him out with the water.

—

Shisui doesn't want to die because if you were dead, it meant that you would be forgotten. And to be forgotten was to be like as if you never existed at all. As if you were either too good to be true or too bad to be sad.

(He doesn't want to be forgotten. Not like this.)

Shisui smiles bitterly, blood leaking from his lips as he drowns, and Itachi stands above him like a god.

(_'I don't want to die. I don't want to die at all,' _his heart murmurs, like a gentle creek, too weak to fight and too meek.)

Uchiha Shisui doesn't want to die, but in the end, he dies after all.

—

_And in the end, you emerge._

—

A/N: Footnotes ahoy!

(1) The number 4, particularly in Cantonese and Japanese, is considered an unlucky number because it shares the same sounding as the word "death". In Cantonese, the number 4 is pronounced as "say" which, coincidentally, sounds like the word for "die" in that language. In Japanese, the number 4 can be pronounced two ways: "yon" and "shi". The word "shi" can also refer to "death".


End file.
